Title Page
ABSTRACT
Contents
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 11
COVID-19: Racialized Contagion 11
Racialized Contagion and Asian Figures 13
Overview of Everything Everywhere All At Once 15
CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 19
Orientalism 19
American-Orientalism 20
American Orientalism and Gender 22
Techno-Orientalism 24
Ornamentalism 26
CHAPTER 3. STATE OF THE FIELD 28
The Oriental Imagination: Fu Manchu 28
History of Asian Female Representation in Mainstream American Cinema 29
Anna May Wong 1910s 30
Nancy Kwan 1960s 31
Lucy Liu 2000s 33
Michelle Yeoh 2010s 36
CHAPTER 4. THE EVOLUTION AND PERSISTENCE OF ORIENTALISM IN MAINSTREAM AMERICAN CINEMA 38
Ornamentalism in Mainstream American Cinema 40
Orientalism's Limitations and Mainstream Representations 42
CHAPTER 5. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS 43
Model Minority Myth 44
Nihilism and Absurdity 48
Taoism: Nihilism vs. Absurdism 51
Yin and yang 52
Wu wei 54
Nihilism and Sisyphus Metaphor 55
The rock scene 58
Asian Pessimism: from the character of Joy/Jobu Tupaki 63
Jobu's outfits and the multiverse 69
Alpha Gong Gong: origin of Evelyn's trauma 72
Waymond: Redefining Asian Masculinity 76
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION 85
REFERENCES 88
Figure 1. Alex walks into the room 35
Figure 2. Evelyn sticks googly eye on her forehead. 52
Figure 3. Evelyn and Jobu Tupaki look at the bagel Jobu created. 52
Figure 4. Evelyn organizes tax receipt 55
Figure 5. Close-up shot of receipts Timecode: 1:28:02-1:28:05 56
Figure 6. Evelyn picks up a baseball bat attached with googly eyes. 56
Figure 7. Evelyn turns into a rock. Timecode: 1:38:15-1:39:46 57
Figure 8. Collage of Evelyn in multiverse. Timecode: 1:40:11- 1:42:27 58
Figure 9. Jobu Rock rolls down the mountain. Timecode: 2:05:20 62
Figure 10. Jobu's first appearance. Timecode: 53:52 65
Figure 11. Golfer Jobu 69
Figure 12. Jobu with face cover 69
Figure 13. Asian Grandma Jobu 70
Figure 14. Jobu in Japanese and Korean style. 70
Figure 15. Alpha Gong Gong: origin of Evelyn's trauma. Timecode: 14:10 72
Figure 16. Alpha Gong Gong listening to Evelyn's words. 73
Figure 17. Alpha Gong Gong hit by Evelyn's words. Timecode: 2:00:00-2:00:35 73
Figure 18. Waymond looks at an aged Asian couple. 78
Figure 19. A loving, aged Asian couple. Timecode: 12:50-12:53 78
Figure 20. Waymond dancing with a white male customer. Timecode: 8:07 79
Figure 21. Chow Mo-wan in 2046 (2004). 82
Figure 22. A decent, rich version of Waymond in multiverse. 82